Breeding characteristics
2 employees for breeding and feed production
200 sows
COBEVIAL member, farrower-weaner
Vénus sows x Piétrain SAPHIR boars
7-band management, weaning in 28 days
Key figures for the year
120 kg reach weight
14.7 weaned per litter
Team testimonial
” The Venus is a calm, maternal, dairy and hardy sow. All piglets are weaned under their mothers, without any adoptive sows. Weaning weights are excellent, between 115 and 120 kg per litter. Following the introduction of flushing, prolificacy has risen sharply, and thanks to the Venus’s dairy and maternal capacities, this increase in births has translated into an increase in weanings.
The key factors for achieving this level of performance :
- rigor in everything we do, hygiene and good genetics,
- The start of lactation is a decisive moment, and we rigorously monitor farrowings and take temperature readings,
- for inseminations, we attach great importance to detection (once a day in the morning with 2 different boars, a first AI as soon as detected, then every 24 hours, and we re-detect heat every day),
- by receiving 140- and 160-day-old gilts, I finish the growth of my gilts myself with gestating feed to limit their size.
GAEC d’Anjou team (80)
Top-level performance for Venus
Range performance
| Range rank | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % of row | 18,2 | 15,2 | 16,2 | 16,2 | 13,1 | 10,1 | 11,0 |
| Weaned from normal litters/litter | 15,7 | 14,8 | 14,4 | 14,4 | 14,2 | 14,0 | 14,5 |
GTE and GTTT performance
| GTE criteria | Feed/truy/year (Kg) | Weaning losses – sales |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 / 2024 | 1,176 Kg | 2,6 % |
| GTTT criteria | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 (6 months) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Born alive | 16,0 | 16,6 | 16,9 |
| Weaned / litter | 13,8 | 14,4 | 14,7 |
| Fertility (%) | 98,1 | 98,0 | 97,9 |
| Gestation period (days) | 114,6 | 114,6 | 114,7 |
| Sow mortality (%) | 1,4 | 2,4 | 2,5 |
Expert opinion
Laurent Comyn, Axiom sales technician
“On this farm, in the maternity ward, each sow’s functional teats are referenced, enabling us to optimize adoptions. All gilts’ teats are stimulated in first lactation, and it’s not unusual for gilts to dry 16 or 17 piglets.
In spite of installations that are over 25 years old, less than 2% of sows are lost each year, and the quality of teats is maintained throughout their careers. This sow longevity allows us to choose culls, rather than suffer them. Although a third of the herd is in rank 5 or above, no rank weans fewer than 14 piglets.”